Ray Charles, Bluesy Essence of Soul, Is Dead at 73

By JON PARELES and BERNARD WEINRAUB

Published: June 11, 2004

Ray Charles, the piano man with the bluesy voice who reshaped American music for a half-century, bringing the essence of soul to country, jazz, rock, standards and every other style of music he touched, died yesterday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 73.

Mr. Charles underwent successful hip replacement surgery last year and had been scheduled to start a concert tour this month, but developed other ailments and died of complications of liver disease, said his publicity agent, Jerry Digney.

Mr. Charles brought his influence to bear as a performer, songwriter, bandleader and producer. Though blind since childhood, he was a remarkable pianist, at home with splashy barrelhouse playing and precisely understated swing. But his playing was inevitably overshadowed by his voice, a forthright baritone steeped in the blues, strong and impure and gloriously unpredictable.

He could belt like a blues shouter and croon like a pop singer, and he used the flaws and breaks in his voice to illuminate emotional paradoxes. Even in his early years he sounded like a voice of experience, someone who had seen all the hopes and follies of humanity.

Leaping into falsetto, stretching a word and then breaking it off with a laugh or a sob, slipping into an intimate whisper and then letting loose a whoop, Mr. Charles could sound suave or raw, brash or hesitant, joyful or desolate, insouciant or tearful, earthy or devout. He projected the primal exuberance of a field holler and the sophistication of a bebopper; he could conjure exaltation, sorrow and determination within a single phrase.

In the 1950's Mr. Charles became an architect of soul music by bringing the fervor and dynamics of gospel to secular subjects. But he soon broke through any categories. By singing any song he prized -- from ''Hallelujah I Love Her So'' to ''I Can't Stop Loving You'' to ''Georgia on My Mind'' to ''America the Beautiful'' -- Mr. Charles claimed all of American music as his birthright. He made more than 60 albums, and his influence echoes through generations of rock and soul singers.

Joe Levy, the music editor of Rolling Stone, said, ''The hit records he made for Atlantic in the mid-50's mapped out everything that would happen to rock 'n' roll and soul music in the years that followed.''

''Ray Charles is the guy who combined the sacred and the secular, he combined gospel music and the blues,'' Mr. Levy continued, adding, ''He's called a genius because no one could confine him to one genre. He wasn't just rhythm and blues. He was jazz as well. In the early 60's he turned himself into a country performer. Except for B. B. King, there's no other figure who's been as important or has endured so long.''

In an interview with The New York Times earlier this year, after being sidelined by surgery for months, Mr. Charles reflected on his career and seemed eager to be in front of an audience again.

''Yes, I'm going to keep touring, keep performing, it's in my blood,'' he said in a recording studio in Los Angeles. ''I'm like Count Basie or Duke Ellington. Until the good Lord calls my number, that's what I'm going to do.'' Several weeks after that interview he canceled a March 2 appearance at Alice Tully Hall in Manhattan because of postsurgery discomfort.

''I ain't going to live forever,'' he said during the recording studio interview. ''I got enough sense to know that. I also know it's not a question of how long I live, but it's a question of how well I live.''

He had recently recorded an album of duets with such performers as Norah Jones, B. B. King, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Michael McDonald and James Taylor that was planned for an August release. A movie, tentatively titled ''Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Story,'' starring Jamie Foxx and directed by Taylor Hackford, has been completed, but its producers say they are uncertain if it will be released this year or next.

Mr. Charles influenced singers as varied as Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison and Billy Joel. But he started out being influenced by a very different singer, Nat King Cole.

''When I started out I tried to imitate Nat Cole because I loved him so much,'' Mr. Charles said. ''But then I woke up one morning and I said, 'People tell me all the time that I sound like Nat Cole, but wait a minute, they don't even know my name.' As scared as I was -- because I got jobs sounding like Nat Cole -- I just said, 'Well, I've got to change because nobody knows who I am.' And my Mom taught me one thing, 'Be yourself, boy.' And that's the premise I went on.''

Ray Charles Robinson was born on Sept. 23, 1930, in Albany, Ga., a small town, and grew up in an even smaller town, Greenville, Fla. When he was 5 he began losing his sight from an unknown ailment that may have been glaucoma. He became completely blind by the time he was 7. But he began to learn piano, at first from a local boogie-woogie pianist, Wylie Pitman; he also soaked up gospel music at the Shiloh Baptist Church and rural blues from musicians including Tampa Red.

He would say years later that racism in the South affected him just as it had any other black person.